Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/215

Rh Holden was there seemed to be simply to incorporate him into the community. This showed an increase of kindly feeling, and prospect of better treatment; but the process was one of great pain. The instrument used was made from the bones of the great Man-o'-war hawk, being about an inch long, with teeth long enough to not only pierce the skin, but to reach even the bones. It is quite unlike the sailors' method, which is done with a fine needle, and the outer skin simply raised sufficiently to admit the ink under the cuticle. But this was on a truly barbarous plan. The man to be tattooed was laid flat on the ground, and the operator straddled his body, and with the instrument laid at the proper place made the incisions with the blow of a mallet. Often over the ribs, as Holden was thus operated upon, the teeth were driven into the bone and were pulled out only with some exertion. Under such treatment he could only hold his breath, waiting for the man to take a fresh supply of ink, to suspire. The process required three whole days, and the juices used to make the color, were so severe as to cause the flesh to puff into large swellings. It was the intention to tattoo his face also, but this he resisted, preferring to die, and threatening them with the vengeance of the white man's God.

Nevertheless, amid all these troubles, he did not wholly stagnate mentally, but took pains to learn the language, which he still retains, and to be able to form a correct vocabulary of their words. He still had a hope of escape, and felt the value to commerce, or more especially of any castaways like himself, of knowing more of these people and teaching them in some way the value of human life. He found that they held the white man's God in superstitious regard, seeing the ships, the firearms, and the iron given, as they supposed, to His favorites. More than once in a desperate situation he overawed them by threat-